NV got DS2 contract according to BSN

[Ailuros]

Absolutely agreed - Goforce was if anything mediocre, and right now Nvidia is no more established than anyone else (quite opposite). We have a few somewhat equally small fish in the pond, but I *do* think the others have been here longer, and still haven't gotten much bigger. Nvidia on the other hand has been in this position before, and I think they know that if they wish to get as big here as they have in the discrete space, they have to provide competitive hardware and software, they have to make their hardware extremely well-known and understood, and they have to get their IP into as many devices as possible.

I don't know how IMG as a company sees it, but I agree that at the moment NVIDIA/Tegra is their most serious (indirect!) competition.

I'm not sure if they have any Linux support plans yet but expanding to more APIs then they do right now would also help. They won't push for OpenCL I figure as early since their ALUs aren't fit yet for something like that.

 

[sfried]

It's a competitive alternative and as Nintendo never really sets it's hw goals particularly high it does seem to fit their demands more than just fine.

Still, what's stopping Nintendo from just making up their own hardware? Why did they need to approach a graphics hardware company especially for this when they could've just avoided paying for any more licenses? I wouldn't exactly call the Tegra "off-the-shelf". Could it be nVidia's price offer(s) that made it enticing?

We can't just say they're out just to nib on IMG/Sony since there are cheaper ways to do that.

 

[rpg.314]

Still, what's stopping Nintendo from just making up their own hardware?

Because making competitive GPU's is HARD. VERY HARD. Especially if you have no experience in that. It's a job best left to specialists.

 

[sfried]

Because making competitive GPU's is HARD. VERY HARD. Especially if you have no experience in that. It's a job best left to specialists.

That's exactly my point. Why bother with a competitive GPU? They're not in it for the spec power play. There must be something else the Tegra can do.

 

[rpg.314]

That's exactly my point. Why bother with a competitive GPU? They're not in it for the spec power play. There must be something else the Tegra can do.

I still haven't understood your point. Care to elaborate? Making your own gpu is out of the question. The only question is whether nv will do it or img?

 

[Ailuros]

Still, what's stopping Nintendo from just making up their own hardware? Why did they need to approach a graphics hardware company especially for this when they could've just avoided paying for any more licenses? I wouldn't exactly call the Tegra "off-the-shelf". Could it be nVidia's price offer(s) that made it enticing?

The answer is yes to the latter but the background is far more complicated. As for Nintendo designing their own GPU, why didn't they do it for the Wii console then? It's anything but demanding as a device from the hw side.

We can't just say they're out just to nib on IMG/Sony since there are cheaper ways to do that.

I think the Nintendo deal was closed earlier than the SONY one.

That's exactly my point. Why bother with a competitive GPU? They're not in it for the spec power play. There must be something else the Tegra can do.

You'll have a very hard time to find at least one capability of the Tegra GPU that a SGX, Mali or even Vivante couldn't do. Oh wait Tegra supports coverage sampling AA (2x MSAA + 3xCSAA) which is an economic approximation of multisampling. Given that TBDRs like SGX have an advantage with memory footprint and bandwidth consumption with AA and Mali can do single cycle 4xMSAA, it's not even a point worth mentioning.

If you now ask why Mali for example didn't succeed to gain such a contract, since falanx is a subsidiary of ARM one should ask them why they haven't managed to push it more aggressively to gain such high volume deals. NVIDIA on the other hand as sunscar already indicated knows how to push such a bandwagon.

 

[sfried]

So there seems to be no argument that Nintendo's new handheld will indeed be nVidia/Tegra powered, but I still pondered about one last aspect - the structural integrity/durability of the SoC itself: Aren't nVidia's chips more prone to meltdown? I am aware they're using a different design for the Tegra than their average graphics card line, so it seems less likely, but there's always that possibilty of it burning out from overclocking, and Nintendo usually likes their hardware to be able to withstand a bomb.

Have there been any firsthand experiences with torture testing done on the Zune?

 

[Blazkowicz]

That's exactly my point. Why bother with a competitive GPU? They're not in it for the spec power play. There must be something else the Tegra can do.

then why release new hardware at all?
or why not go back to using a Z80 and monochrome LCD?

nintendo maybe wants to support gamecube-level assets, plus there's potential for scaled-down dx9 assets. Now, you need a competitive GPU, you need perf/watt and good drivers no matter what. Feature-parity with the playstation 3 is icing on the cake

anyway I find tegra gen 1 pretty terrible, it's showcasing is quake 3 at an unplayable framerate. that game needs 35fps, not 60.. and I'm pretty confident Tegra gen 2 will do.
Tegra 2 looks powerful enough to be used in netbooks and desktops imo.

 

[brain_stew]

anyway I find tegra gen 1 pretty terrible, it's showcasing is quake 3 at an unplayable framerate. that game needs 35fps, not 60.. and I'm pretty confident Tegra gen 2 will do.

I assume you mean that the other way round.

Do remember that demo's at 800x480 with 5xcsaa/8xaf, I'm sure it'd manage 60fps just fine at the DS's screen resolution which isn't likely to be more than a ~1/3 as high as that (which a PSPalike resolution of 480x272 would be). Considering where Nintendo were, that in itself would be a pretty nice leap, add a possible ~2x upgrade from Tegra2 and you've got some pretty nice looking handheld titles. Anyone heard any mumblings about the expected amount of RAM? Is 128MB out of the question? 64MB would probably be enough, I'd guess.

Looking forward to it myself, hope the nice IQ (for a portable system) remains standard.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I mainly expect a better CPU for tegra 2 (cortex?), and perhaps the same GPU clocked a bit faster.

I'm a nutcase, with low expectations on the desktop and very high ones on handheld.
I love running older games at insane IQ and insane framerates on the very lowest end graphics card available today.

as for the memory, ddr3 chips are pretty big, a single one will give you 128MB ram already, and bigger chips exist. see there
http://www.euroinvestor.fr/news/story.aspx?id=10748406&bw=20091119006421

 

[Arun]

Tegra 2 looks powerful enough to be used in netbooks and desktops imo.
[...]
I mainly expect a better CPU for tegra 2 (cortex?), and perhaps the same GPU clocked a bit faster.
I'm a nutcase, with low expectations on the desktop and very high ones on handheld.

Uhhh... what? I'm at a complete loss: is it just me, or are you you massively contradicting yourself several times there?

as for the memory, ddr3 chips are pretty big, a single one will give you 128MB ram already, and bigger chips exist. see there

Tegra1 uses LPDDR1, Tegra2 uses LPDDR2 (for cost reasons it might still support LPDDR1, not sure). Normal DDR's idle power is ridiculously too high for handhelds, although DDR3 is arguably viable to smartbooks so they might bother to support it too in the highest-end Tegra2 chip.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I'm unclear then. what I want is good enough graphics, be it on desktop or handheld. good enough is high AA, high AF, 60fps, then the game has to be good looking but I don't pay that much importance to resolution, polygon counts and effects.

a high end Tegra with 64bit ddr3 would be decent for a laptop/very low power desktop, except for the lack of x86 compatibility. a lower end tegra with 32bit lp-ddr2 will make for the greatest handheld console so far, but will only be decent for me - I demand a lot from hyped hardware that pretends to give you a great 3D performance in your hand.

besides, we're getting towards similar prices for products with same order of magnitude performance but completely different market category. i.e., around the 150€ is the price for a nintendo DS, an ARM netbook or a <10W desktop.

I believe all those segments of low power hardware have potential. I wouldn't mind a mini ITX tegra board either

 

[sfried]

then why release new hardware at all?
or why not go back to using a Z80 and monochrome LCD?

You seem to be missing the point of Nintendo's philosophy with handhelds. Funny you mentioned the Z80 with monochrome screen, because as I recall, the GameBoy wasn't exactly top-of-the-line tech even when it came out in its day, but sold like pancakes because it had Tetris and the battery life to run it.

The key here is that the parts most likely will be cheap but robust and easy to use. I'm willing to bet that effects like AF and the like would either be implemented without taking a power hit or maybe have some sort of special dedicated software implementation (DS already does AA but no AF). Regardless, I wouldn't be expecting anything as remotely high as a heck load of texture filters and graphics to match DX9. What's important here is performance efficiency, and I think the fact that Tegra has high numbers where it counts helps (although Nintendo would most likely again give modest claims to little or no actual specifics about the actual specs of their system as they always have). Likewise, what's "good enough graphics" by Nintendo's standards may not be the same as someone elses, so don't get your hopes up.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

While 480 x 272 sounds nice, how well would it work for a handheld that'll most likely have a second screen running at the same resolution? How badly would that drain the battery life?

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Wouldnt that depend more on what the second screen is used for? I believe most 3d games use 1 screen for simple 2d stuff like maps so I suppose that wont have a very big impact on battery life. Ofcourse the second screen itself will, but that isnt such a big deal for the current DS battery life either so I'm sure Nintendo will make sure battery life is good enough.

 

[Blazkowicz]

by that time they could be using OLED.
a quick search tells me that 480x272, 3.4" OLED displays are in use now.

 

[fehu]

big screen up and dsi like screen down?
keep compatibility, foldable design, and add something more and immediatly reconoscible

some day from now on texan'site: scoooop! ds2 will have two different screen!

 

[JohnH]

by that time they could be using OLED.
a quick search tells me that 480x272, 3.4" OLED displays are in use now.

Note that OLED isn't a huge power save, in fact if you are running an app that is very "bright" it may consume more power than LCD afaik.

John.

 

[Blazkowicz]

now you make me learn something interesting.

that may be especially true on the smaller screens, which can be cheaply lighted with white LEDs.
you presumably benefit still from high contrast and better vision angles, so there may be less incentive to push the brightness up to clearly see the display.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

You know what I'd like to see in a handheld? Instead of better graphics, I'd love to see a handheld that can be played outside in the daylight! God, it's such a pain in the ass to play when the sun shines into the screen. Is there technology out there that can solve that problem? Other than making the screen lighting even brighter. It wastes batteries too.